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Saturday, May 24, 2008

Facing a tough reelection fight in 2004, George W. Bush expressed outrage over leaked photos showing U.S. military police at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison abusing detainees, who were paraded naked before female guards, threatened by attack dogs, chained in “stress positions” and forced to wear ladies underpants on their heads.

President Bush assured the American people that he “shared a deep disgust that those prisoners were treated the way they were treated.” Other administration officials pinned the blame on a “few bad apples” and dismissed the prison guards’ claim that they were told to “soften up” the detainees for interrogation.

Now, a report by the Justice Department’s Inspector General reveals that months before those abuses at Abu Ghraib, nearly identical tactics were used against “war on terror” detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and at CIA prisons – and that FBI complaints about the tactics went up the chain of command back to Washington.

FBI agents at Guantanamo even opened a file that they labeled “war crimes” to document the systematic violations of the Geneva Conventions and laws against torture that they witnessed – before being told by superiors to close the file.

According to the Inspector General’s report, the FBI protests reached the White House but went unheeded. Instead, the prisoner abuses spread to Iraq where the Abu Ghraib prison was “Gitmo-ized” with the same harsh and bizarre tactics applied to Iraqi detainees.

So, the new Inspector General’s report adds to the growing body of evidence that – in the months before Election 2004 – Bush only feigned shock about what was being done to detainees in American custody.

The evidence is now overwhelming that Bush knew of – and approved of – those violations of the rules of war and basic human decency, that the “war crimes” catalogued by the FBI agents could be traced to him.

In April 2008, ABC News reported, citing unnamed sources, that during the early days of the “war on terror,” senior Bush aides met in what was called the Principals Committee to calibrate the level of harsh techniques that would be used against detainees.

At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

“The high-level discussions about these ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed – down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic,” ABC News reported, adding:

“These top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al-Qaeda suspects – whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding, sources told ABC News.”

Asked about his subordinates setting these interrogation rules, Bush told ABC News correspondent Martha Raddatz that “yes, I'm aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved." [ABC News, April 11, 2008]

Moral Leader?

Yet, in 2004, by dismissing the grotesque scenes at Abu Ghraib as an aberration, Bush portrayed himself as a moral leader who was furious that some low-level American soldiers would misbehave in such a fashion.

After the photos became public, Army Sgt. Sam Provance was the only uniformed military intelligence officer at Abu Ghraib to support the guards’ claim that the prisoner abuse was part of the “alternative interrogation techniques” that had made their way from Guantanamo to Abu Ghraib.

Provance, however, was punished for his candor and pushed out of the U.S. military. The Bush administration then went ahead and pinned the blame on the MPs. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib.”]

Eventually, 11 enlisted soldiers were convicted in courts martial. Cpl. Charles Graner Jr. received the harshest sentence – 10 years in prison – while Lynndie England, a 22-year-old single mother who was photographed holding an Iraqi on a leash and pointing at a detainee’s penis, was sentenced to three years in prison.

Protected from the scandal’s fallout, Bush was rewarded with a second term in the White House. Later, he began to treat the Abu Ghraib case like some freak accident that the media had blown out of proportion.

At a press conference on May 25, 2006, Bush complained, “We’ve been paying for that for a long period of time.”

However, it’s now clear the President didn’t pay much of a personal price at all. The more complete record now available indicates that Bush was a knowledgeable participant in the sadistic treatment of detainees, not an innocent bystander.

Indeed, on Feb. 7, 2002, Bush signed the key memo that cleared the way for the abuses, asserting that the Geneva Conventions’ prohibitions against the degrading treatment of prisoners did not apply to “unlawful combatants,” including al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the militant Islamists who had ruled Afghanistan at the time of the 9/11 attacks.

Many casual readers missed the import of Bush’s phrasing, which stressed that captives would be treated “humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of Geneva.”

The operative phrase in the memo turned out to be “to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity.” In the Bush administration’s view, that was a loophole you could drive a truck full of abusive tactics through. [For more on Bush’s theories of presidential power, see our book, Neck Deep.]

Fresh Evidence

The Inspector General’s report, released May 20, 2008, also provides fresh evidence that senior Bush aides signed off on the harsh treatment of detainees.

In spring 2002, when FBI agents objected to the treatment of badly wounded al-Qaeda captive Abu Zubaydah – what one agent called “borderline torture” – they were assured by CIA personnel “that the procedures being used on Zubaydah had been approved ‘at the highest levels,’” the Inspector General’s report said.

But one of the FBI agents, called “Thomas” in the report, still passed on his concerns to his superior, FBI Counterterrorism Assistant Director Pasquale D'Amuro, who soon pulled the FBI agents out of the interrogation.

D’Amuro, in turn, took the issue of Zubaydah’s interrogation to FBI Director Robert Mueller; Michael Chertoff, then Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; and other senior department officials, the report said.

During a meeting with his superiors in summer 2002, D’Amuro said he learned that the CIA had obtained a legal opinion from the Justice Department opening the door for the harsh interrogations.

That was an apparent reference to memos written by John Yoo of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, claiming that the President’s commander-in-chief authority gave Bush the right to ignore laws if he deemed that necessary to protect the nation.

“After his meeting at Chertoff's office, [D’Amuro] met with Director Mueller and recommended that the FBI not get involved in interviews in which aggressive interrogation techniques were being used,” the Inspector General’s report said.

“He stated that his exact words to Mueller were ‘we don't do that,’ and that someday the FBI would be called to testify and he wanted to be able to say that the FBI did not participate in this type of activity.

“D'Amuro said that the Director agreed with his recommendation that the FBI should not participate in interviews in which these techniques were used.”

D’Amuro said he objected to the harsh techniques because they were less effective in gleaning reliable information; complicated later prosecutions; violated moral standards; and “helped al-Qaeda in spreading negative views of the United States.”

Up the Ladder

These FBI concerns made there way up the ladder to Bush’s National Security Council.

Mueller’s chief of staff Daniel Levin said he attended a meeting at the NSC at which CIA techniques were discussed and an attorney from the Office of Legal Counsel [OLC] defended their legality.

“Levin stated that in connection with this meeting, or immediately after it, FBI Director Mueller decided that FBI agents would not participate in interrogations involving techniques the FBI did not normally use in the United States, even though OLC had determined such techniques were legal,” the Inspector General’s report said.

During this period, military interrogators tied al-Qahtani to a dog leash and made him perform dog tricks; repeatedly poured water over his head; put him in painful stress positions; questioned him for periods of 20 hours straight; stripped him naked in front of a woman; held him down while a female interrogator straddled him; called his mother and sister whores; accused him of homosexual tendencies; made him dance with a male interrogator; ordered him to pray to an idol shrine; and subjected him to extreme temperatures.

At one point in December 2002, al-Qahtani was taken to a hospital suffering from low blood pressure and low body core temperature, what one FBI agent termed hypothermia.

The FBI’s objections to al-Qahtani’s interrogation also were brought to the attention of senior officials in Washington, according to the Inspector General’s report.

David Nahmias, a counsel in the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, told the IG that he was “fairly confident” that department officials raised the al-Qahtani issue at a meeting of the Principals Committee.

Nahmias also said he believed Attorney General Ashcroft spoke with someone at the NSC, mostly likely NSC adviser Rice, about the FBI concerns regarding al-Qahtani.

“When asked if anything ever happened as a result of these meetings, Nahmias said that DOJ officials were continually frustrated by their inability to get any changes or make progress with regard to the al-Qahtani matter,” the report said.

Ashcroft, who resigned in November 2004 shortly after Bush won a second term, declined to be interviewed by the Inspector General.

Lack of Action

But the reason for a lack of action on the FBI complaints is now more obvious.

The FBI’s evidence of “war crimes” went up the chain of command, all the way to the White House, the NSC and the Principals Committee – precisely where the abusive policies had been developed in the first place.

Before senior FBI officials grasped this high-level support for the mistreatment of detainees, some FBI agents were instructed to compile the evidence for a “war crimes” file at Guantanamo.

“At some point in 2003, however,” the Inspector General’s report said, the FBI agents at Guantanamo “received instructions not to maintain a separate ‘war crimes’ file, … that investigating detainee allegations of abuse was not the FBI's mission.”

When the ugly reality of how the United States was treating detainees finally surfaced in spring 2004 with the Abu Ghraib photos, Bush and his top aides pretended that they were innocent parties as shocked as everyone else.

By laying the blame off on a “few bad apples,” Bush managed to get through the November 2004 election relatively unscathed.

And now that the truth is finally coming to the surface, it appears to be too late for him to be held accountable for “war crimes” and other abuses of his presidential powers.

Some members of the Democratic-controlled Congress have expressed outrage over the latest disclosures and want hearings.

But – if recent history suggests anything – it is that the Bush administration will brush aside congressional inquiries, and the Democrats, who long ago took impeachment off the table, will surrender once again.

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth' are also available there. Or go to Amazon.com.

Editor’s Note: When a TV series, a movie – or even a political campaign – is pushing the edges of believability, there can occur what has become known as the “shark-jumping moment,” when the story line goes too far.

For some American voters, that moment for Hillary Clinton came when she boasted of her success with “hard-working Americans, white Americans.” In this guest essay, historian Lisa Pease says the moment arrived for her Friday when Clinton defended her continued campaign by citing Robert Kennedy’s 1968 assassination:Okay. I am SO DONE with the Clintons.

I was no fan of theirs during their administration. And Hillary Clinton has run one of the most negative campaigns in modern history against Barack Obama, who, by contrast, has managed to stay, rather miraculously, above the fray. …

It's been disgusting to me personally to have her carrying any banner for the Democratic party, of which I've been a proud member all my life, because I feel she undermines our values.

She complains she's gotten unfair treatment because she's a woman. But Obama never complained he got unfair treatment because he was black. McCain doesn't complain about getting unfair treatment because he's old.

Everyone gets unfair treatment at times. To label it misogyny is bizarre, untrue and demeaning to all the women who have spent lifetimes fighting for equal rights.

You can't ask to be President of the United States and then whine about how unfairly you're treated. All people running for President are going to be treated unfairly.

As she says herself, if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

When she and her husband tried to paint Obama as unelectable because he was black (and don't even try to argue in their defense - that's EXACTLY what they've been doing) they are basically speaking heresy against core Democratic values.

The Clinton Years

I'm one of the few Democrats I know who does not look back fondly on the Clinton years. I have to go back to Jimmy Carter to find a President I was at least satisfied with.

I watched in shock as the Clintons sold out our economy, our jobs and our manufacturing base with their unqualified support for NAFTA. I cheered Dick Gephardt's valiant effort to defeat his own party's President on this.

I watched as Hillary Clinton was handed the health care issue, with the full power of the presidency behind her. She couldn't get it done.

She didn't forge the necessary coalitions, and when she did compromise, it was in all the wrong places, so that by the time she brought forward a bill, there was little left worth supporting.

The best part about this campaign is that now many Democrats are finally seeing the Bill and Hillary Clinton that the right wing has hated for so long. And perhaps that common ground will help us forge some new bridges in the fall.

The problems we face in this country - reclaiming our vote, opening up government, turning the Titanic around re global warming, and finding a new energy future are too big to leave to partisan concerns.

I'm looking forward to hearing new voices rise in the Republican party, as the neocon philosophy slowly recedes from the national conversation, having utterly failed us for the past eight years.

Final Straw

Friday was the final straw for me. For her to bring up the assassination of Robert Kennedy as a reason for staying in the race was the lowest blow yet …

She was trying to make the point about June being the end of the campaign, but the subtext of course was, someone might kill Obama, and that's why she's waiting around.

Go away, Hillary. Please. Go far, far away.

Your and your husband's lies have aided in destroying people's faith in government. Go duck sniper fire in some other country.

You don't belong in our party. You couldn't even run your own campaign well. I don't want you anywhere near government. You don't deserve it.

When this campaign first started, I had no reason to get involved. I thought any of our [Democratic] leaders - John Edwards, Clinton or Obama – would do a better job than the Republicans so I planned to just sit the primaries out.

Choosing Obama

But when I saw what some Clinton supporters were saying about Obama (having 'no' record, being unqualified for any of a number of bogus reasons) that pressed my button. I have great sympathy for the underdog.

The more I read, the more I realized we'd be crazy NOT to elect Obama. He has it all.

He's smart. He's experienced. He's principled. He had a genuine, documented record of forging important legislation and getting bipartisan support.

He made a break with politics as usual to run a campaign that was truly of, by and for the people when he rejected all PAC money. He spoke out against the war when it was politically risky to do so. He chose community organizing over Wall Street.

He grew up in two countries, so he has a better understanding in his blood than most of how lucky we are here in America, and how much the rest of the world suffers, often as a result of our foreign policy abroad.

And then there's Hillary. She's a liar. She's a backstabber (telling Obama to his face how "honored" she was to share the debate with him, and then a couple of days later saying, when he wasn't there to respond, "Shame on you.")

She valued loyalty to herself over competency, which is why her campaign had so many issues.

She ran as if it were a "coronation" - rich drapery at events, spending campaign donor money as if it was water. Staying at the Bellagio in Vegas. And perhaps worst of all, claiming her husband's presidential experience as her own. (See my response to that here.)

The Feminist Question

I knew she was a climber, that the only reason she stayed with her husband after he embarrassed her in front of the world was so she could make him pay in a different way - by campaigning for her, and leveraging his connections on her behalf.

There's a wondrous kind of karma in this, in that he ended up being one of her biggest liabilities, rather than a help.

As a feminist, I was upset that our first female President would only have gotten there on her husband's coattails. She is not qualified to be President.

Why not wait for Barbara Boxer, who would make a fine President? Or Kathleen Sibelius? Or Janet Napolitano? Or Christine Gregoire? There are plenty of women who would make good presidents.

I'm not someone who would vote for someone just because she was a woman. I will vote for the best person, no matter their color, their sex or sexual orientation, or their race.

For all her nastiness, for all the lies, I have defended her staying in the race. Until today.

Look. The nomination race is over. It's been over since Obama won Wisconsin, just a week after sweeping the Potomac primaries. It's been over, mathematically, for a long time.

But I wanted to allow her and her supporters their fantasy. I saw the contest as building our Democratic party base, given us reasons to go into every state and register new voters. And that's been good for us, to a point. Until now.

She knows Obama has received death threats. She knows that people who have stood up from positions of power and said no to war have been assassinated. And she saw the press go after Gov. Huckabee for his beyond dumb and horribly unfunny allusion to the same.

The second to last straw, for me, was her comment about how the "hard-working" "white people" were voting for her, implying that other people were not so hard-working.

I wanted her excommunicated from the Democratic party for that statement alone.

But this comment was truly the last straw. Her statement on Friday was simply unconscionable.

She needs to go away. Forever. I never want to see her face on TV or hear that voice again.

Lisa Pease is a historian who has studied the Kennedy assassinations and other enduring political mysteries.

It no longer is about Data Portability or Social Graph Portability, if you will.

I’m hearing these rumors too that John Furrier (my ex-boss) is reporting. That Microsoft will buy Yahoo’s search and then buy Facebook for $15 to $20 billion. Add that to all the news that Microsoft is buying Yahoo’s search and that gets very interesting.

That just changed the whole argument of Facebook vs. Google to one of Microsoft vs. the Web.

Think about this just a second.

Let’s say Microsoft gets Yahoo’s search. That doesn’t look that brilliant. After all, we know Google is gaining share there and taking Yahoo’s best advertisers (and let’s just forget Microsoft’s efforts, which have been an utter failure so far).

But these two moves would change everything and totally explain why Facebook is working overtime to keep Google from importing anything. First, let’s look at what is at stake here:

Loic Le Meur did a little test with me a couple of weeks ago. He listed his Le Web conference on both Facebook and Upcoming.org. Here’s the Facebook listing. Here’s the Upcoming.org one.

The Facebook one can’t be seen if you don’t have a Facebook account. It’s NOT open to the public Web. Google’s spiders CAN NOT REACH IT.

He put both listings up at exactly the same time and did no invites, nothing. Just let people find these listings on their own.

The Facebook one is NOT available to the Web. It has 467 people who’ve accepted it. The Upcoming.org one IS available to Google and the Web. It has 101 people on it.

This is a fight for the Web. We all just crawled inside a box that locks Google out.

Don’t believe me?

Go to Google and do a search for “Le Web 08.”

Do you see a Facebook entry there? Nope. Google is locked out of the Web that soon will be owned by Microsoft. We will never get an open Web back if these two deals happen.

This has created HUGE value for Microsoft and has handed Steve Ballmer an Internet strategy which brings Microsoft from last place to first in less than a week.

Boom!

Now Microsoft/Yahoo search will have access to HUGE SWATHS of Internet info that Google will NOT have access to.

Data and social graph portability is dead on arrival.

Microsoft just bought itself a search strategy that sure looks like a winner to me.

If all this is true there is no way in hell that Facebook will open up now.

It’s Facebook and Microsoft vs. the open public Web.

Can the open public Web fight back? Yes. It’s called FriendFeed. Notice that FriendFeed replaces almost all of Facebook’s killer features with open ones that are open to Google’s search.

So, now, do you see why I’m so interested in FriendFeed? It’s our only hope to compete with Microsoft’s new “buy enough and keep it closed” search strategy.

Don’t think this matters? It sure does. Relevancy on Yahoo search will go through the roof when it has access to Facebook data and Google doesn’t. People will see that Yahoo has people search (something I’ve asked Google for for years) and Google doesn’t. That’ll turn the tide in advertising, and all that.

Brilliant move, if this all comes true.

I’ve SMS’d Mark Zuckerberg and asked him if he’s selling. I doubt he’ll answer. I hope he holds out for more than $20 billion. He just might get it.

UPDATE: Someone on Twitter (Soulhuntre) says that it doesn’t matter as long as HTTP keeps working. That’s just the point. Facebook BLOCKS HTTP if you aren’t logged into its system and it can remove you at a moment’s notice. @irinaslutsky (former employee of mine) was removed last week from Facebook. This is a scary company and if it gets in the hands of Microsoft will create a scary monopoly.

City wants Canadian Forces to intervene if native dispute explodesThe Canadian PressMay 23, 2008

TORONTO - A southern Ontario city wants to put the Canadian Forces put on notice in preparation of a potential riot by aboriginal protesters.That request is a highlight of a court document that goes before the Superior Court on Friday and includes a request for $110-million in damages and relief.The injunction also seeks to prevent aboriginals from protesting at development sites around Brantford, Ont.

The motion being filed by the city asks the judge to notify the attorney general that the services of the "Canadian Forces are required," because tensions continue to rise as the frequency of protests picks up.

"A physical confrontation and disturbance of the peace or riot is inevitable and imminent," said the motion.

Because of the 150-officer size of the Brantford Police, the service would "not be able to effectively protect public safety when the full-scale disturbance or riot occurs," it adds.

The city's decision to seek an injunction against protesting aboriginals should serve as "an example of leadership" to the province's Liberal government, Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory said Thursday.

A separate injunction brought by Kingspan Group PLC orders protesters to vacate a property under development by Kingspan. It was posted outside the contested land on Wednesday.

In a statement issued Thursday, Mr. Tory commended Brantford Mayor Mike Hancock for taking "appropriate action through the courts," when neither Premier Dalton McGuinty nor his ministers have "had the courage" to do it themselves.

"While we support the negotiation process, our party has consistently maintained that the rule of law in Ontario must be upheld and that the provincial government should take all available steps to address any incidents of lawlessness through our court system," he said.

"As such ... we were pleased to hear of the decision by the City of Brantford to pursue this avenue in the absence of any meaningful action or resolution from Mr. McGuinty or his government."

A spokesman for Aboriginal Affairs Minister Michael Bryant said the government does not comment on matters that are before the courts.The injunction sought names the Haudenosaunee Development Institute, protesters Floyd and Ruby Montour and various other people.

The move follows a unanimous decision by council to pass two city bylaws that prohibit demands for unauthorized payments, or other conditions of development, and prohibit interfering with a development approved by the city.

Mr. Hancock told the Brantford Expositor that he's repeatedly met with developers who have put work on hold or backed off on projects because of the aboriginal dispute.

"I'm not terribly happy about doing this but we're doing what council believes is necessary to protect the city of Brantford," he said.

The ongoing occupation of a former housing development in Caledonia - which has cost the province more than $50-million to police and has turned violent at times - began with a similar injunction.

Protesters involved in the Brantford occupation vowed to continue fighting, suggesting the problem won't be resolved unless "concrete steps" are taken by the federal, provincial and municipal governments.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

RCMP willing to change Taser policy, inquiry toldCBC News Assistant Commissioner Al McIntyre says the RCMP is willing to change the way it uses the Taser. (CBC)The RCMP is willing to change its Taser policy if a new set of guidelines is developed, senior members testified Thursday at an inquiry looking into use of the stun guns.

Assistant Commissioner Al McIntyre said when the Braidwood inquiry is complete, the RCMP will adapt.

"We are willing to change our policy, we are willing to change our training and our utilization of the device in accordance with what is appropriate," McIntyre said.

Senior members of the RCMP said the weapon is useful and it is being used with increasing frequency.

Cpl. Gregg Gillis says Tasers should only be used to get people under control. (CBC)The RCMP has more than 11,000 Tasers in use by more than 3,000 officers.

RCMP policy states Tasers should only be used when there is active resistance and should not be used when someone is simply running away.

"It's a tool to get people under control. It's not a method of restraint, so you don't use it to keep someone on the ground for ten minutes," testified RCMP use of force expert Cpl. Gregg Gillis.

Meanwhile, Canada's Public Safety Minister said he is not willing to ban Taser use by police officers.

Stockwell Day was asked Thursday whether police should still be using the weapon.

"Most police forces across the country agree that having Tasers, if they are properly used and people are properly trained, that they can be a life-saving tool. But the training has to be right, and they have to be applied properly and that's why the RCMP … is reviewing all of their methods right now."

Day was in Vancouver for a security conference, not to attend the inquiry.

The Braidwood inquiry is looking into the use of Tasers following the death of Robert Dziekanski, a Polish immigrant, at Vancouver International Airport last fall.

OTTAWA - A Mohawk leader is warning the Harper government to expect "confrontation" if the RCMP plan more raids on tobacco-manufacturing facilities on aboriginal reserves as part of a new federal enforcement strategy to combat contraband tobacco.

Meanwhile, anti-smoking advocates predict the strategy will fail unless the Canadian government steps up diplomatic pressure on the United States to shut down unlicensed manufacturing facilities south of the border.

According to the RCMP, most of the illegal tobacco in Canada originates from a triangle of Mohawk territories straddling Ontario, Quebec and the New York State border: the U.S. side of the Akwesasne reserve, the Kahnawake reserve near Montreal, and the Tyendinaga reserve near Belleville, Ont.

The RCMP and provincial police have conducted numerous raids of the reserves over the years. The Mounties and the Surete de Quebec raided all three reserves in March, arresting 29 people and seizing roughly $3 million in cash, drugs and firearms.

But Mike Delisle, grand chief of the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake, says it will be a "huge mistake" if the RCMP plan to step up such raids. The Kahnawake Mohawk do not consider the manufacture and sale of tobacco products on their land to be illegal, he said.

"If they're making the statement that raids are imminent, then obviously it concerns me, and I would hope that the federal government or the RCMP in conjunction (with the government) are smarter and take a more collaborative approach as opposed to running roughshod over this community, as they've tried in the past. Obviously, it didn't work out to anyone's benefit," he said.

Delisle said the response from his community could range from a peaceful standoff to "what we've seen in the past in terms of confrontation."

"Our past track records show that we have problem with invasion, regardless of whether you're talking about 400 years ago or 1990. I think they'd get a negative reaction from the community in general if they took that approach."

The Kahnawake Mohawk participated in blockades with other Mohawk during the 1990 standoff over land in Oka, Que. The RCMP stepped in to quell the crisis, but instead set off violent confrontations that injured several officers.

In announcing the strategy Wednesday, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day offered few details on which manufacturing facilities it will target, and exactly how the RCMP will go about dismantling them.

Day said there is "no question a good portion" of illegal tobacco production takes place on reserves, but he emphasized the RCMP will collaborate with police on the reserves to address the problem.

"This is not an issue about targeting a community," said the minister.

RCMP assistant commissioner Raf Souccar, who accompanied Day to make the announcement, said the Mounties will target organized-crime groups at the "highest level," instead of "mom and pop" operations. "We are trying to go after the root of the tree so that we can take it out of business."

The Mounties will take a "multi-faceted approach" that includes education and prevention measures, he added.

Anti-smoking groups such as the Canadian Coalition for Action on Tobacco called the strategy an important first step. But some advocates say the strategy ignores the fact the vast majority of illegal tobacco in Canada is produced in the United States.

The RCMP have alleged that 90 per cent of the contraband tobacco seized in Canada is manufactured on the U.S. side of the Akwesasne territory.

"Just looking at the Canadian sources will have the benefit of reducing the problem, but we cannot effectively solve the problem unless we ensure we eliminate the illegal source of supply on the U.S. side of Akwesasne," Rob Cunningham, senior policy analyst at the Canadian Cancer Society.

Day should call on his U.S. counterpart, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, to shut down the Akwesasne facilities, said Cunningham.

"There has been considerable discussion back and forth across the border with our American counterparts related to the problem," said Day. "We have certainly made known our concerns about illegal tobacco manufacture and distribution."

A spokeswoman for Day, Melisa Leclerc, said the minister has raised the issue in a meeting with Chertoff, but she declined to elaborate.

Last year, the RCMP seized 618,077 cartons of contraband cigarettes, a year-on-year increase of 30 per cent and the Mounties' largest seizure rate ever. Meanwhile, RCMP seizures of loose tobacco spiked nearly sevenfold last year to 141,374 bags.

In the troubled, conflict-ridden Middle East, President George W Bush has done everything wrong. But his mandate still has half a year to run and, unless restrained, he can do a lot more damage -- to the region and to America -- before he retires to his ranch at Crawford, Texas, and to the obscurity he amply deserves.

At the heart of the disaster of his presidency was his failure to grasp why the United States was attacked by al-Qaida on 11 September 2001. He appears never to have asked himself why 19 young Muslims -- 15 of whom were Saudis, and several of them highly-educated -- were prepared to throw away their lives in order to punish America.

Even to ask the question was considered heresy. Surely America had done nothing to arouse such homicidal rage? America was good! America was blameless! These vicious terrorists, and all those who supported them, had to be hunted down across the world and destroyed.

So were launched Bush’s ill-fated wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and his "Global War on Terror," which have ruined America’s good name, killed hundreds of thousands, shattered whole societies, and created far more terrorists than they could ever eliminate.

Neither Bush nor anyone around him appears to have considered the blowback from America’s war, waged throughout the 1980s, to evict the Soviets from Afghanistan – when tens of thousands of young Muslims from around the region were recruited, armed and trained, only to be abandoned and left to their fate when the Russians packed their bags and left.

No one seems to have considered the impact on local opinion of the half- million American troops who in 1990-91 swarmed into Saudi Arabia -- a land sacred to many Muslims because it houses the holy shrines at Mecca and Medina -- in order to drive Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. Nor did anyone consider the impact on Arab opinion of the savage punishment inflicted on Iraq for its transgression, including 13 years of punitive sanctions, which brought the country to its knees long before Bush destroyed it altogether.

Nor did Bush begin to understand the bitter Arab anger aroused by America’s unfailing military, financial ,and diplomatic support for Israel as it invaded and struck Lebanon repeatedly, and as it cruelly oppressed the Palestinians and pushed its illegal settlements deep into Palestinian territory.

Bush had no insight into the mind of the Al-Qaida hijackers -- or of the millions who share their anger, even if they disapprove of their methods. He was thus easy prey for those around him who, exploiting 9/11 for their own ends, pressed for an attack on Iraq.

Donald Rumsfeld, then Defence secretary, wanted to teach the Arabs a lesson about U.S. military power they would never forget. He had, moreover, a more personal motive. He wanted to prove to critics in his own defence establishment that his ideas for reshaping the U.S. armed services -- to make them leaner, more mobile and more hard-hitting -- were sound. He needed a war to prove his point.

Vice-President Dick Cheney had his eye on Iraq’s oil and on the multi-billion dollar contracts American firms like Halliburton could hope to win for rebuilding Iraq’s dilapidated infrastructure.

These two trends might not have been sufficient to sweep America into war had it not been for the passionate advocacy of Washington’s pro-Israeli neo-cons who, throughout the 1990s, clamoured for regime change in Baghdad. Their main concern was to improve Israel’s strategic environment by removing any threat to it from a potential Arab "eastern front." If Iraq were smashed, the "eastern front" would collapse. For them, 9/11 was a gift from the gods.

Bush swallowed the argument that al-Qaida’s attack had nothing to do with America’s foreign policy or with its alliance with Israel. America, the neo-cons argued, had been attacked because of the backward and tyrannical countries from which the terrorists sprang, and the violent, fanatical religion they practised.

It followed that for American and Israel to be safe, Arab society had to be reformed, if necessary by force -- beginning with Iraq. This was the neo-con’s rationale for war, which Bush adopted wholesale as his own. American military power was to be used to transform and reorder the Arab world so as to make it pro-American and pro-Israeli. The region would be tamed by a joint American-Israeli hegemony.

This demented geopolitical fantasy has had lethal consequences, which are with us still. It has served to twist America’s whole approach to the Middle East. Instead of the United States being a benign superpower, or honest broker, helping to resolve the region’s many conflicts -- as it could have been -- Bush has turned it into a malevolent hegemon, exacerbating conflicts and spreading chaos and death.

Instead of recognising his failure in Iraq early on, and bringing the war to a speedy end, Bush has ploughed on, at enormous cost to the U.S. armed services and to U.S. public finances -- and, of course, to Iraq itself, now a broken and divided ‘failed state’, a fifth of whose wretched population has either fled abroad or been internally displaced. An immediate consequence of destroying Iraq has been to enhance Iran’s regional power.

Instead of using America’s great leverage to bring about a comprehensive settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict -- resolving Israel’s conflict not only with all the Palestinians, but with Syria and Lebanon as well -- Bush has obstinately sought to isolate and sanction Syria. In 2006, he backed Israel’s disastrous Lebanon war, and has followed Israel’s lead in demonising Hamas as a ‘terrorist’ organisation, thereby tolerating and excusing Israel’s outrageous siege of Gaza, which has reduced 1.5 million people to abject penury.

Instead of helping to bring Fatah and Hamas together -- as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Norway, and now even France are trying to do -- Bush has armed Fatah against Hamas. Yet, without inter-Palestinian reconciliation, peace talks -- such as Israel’s Ehud Olmert is conducting with the Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas -- are absolutely meaningless.

Instead of using American influence to mediate between all factions in Lebanon -- as Qatar, the Arab League and France are attempting to do -- Bush has pushed the government in Beirut to challenge Hizbullah, and has supplied it with money and weapons to do so. But there can be no peace in Lebanon until the Shia community, represented by Hizbullah, wins its rightful place in the political system, and until Israel leaves the country alone, once and for all.

Bush and his Israeli allies are now obsessed with a so-called threat from Iran, and its nuclear activities. The same people in Washington who pushed for war against Iraq are now pressing for war against Iran. Instead of using his influence to reconcile Iran and its Arab neighbours, in particular Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, Bush has attempted (so far fortunately unsuccessfully) to mobilise them against Iran.

He does not seem to grasp that the greatest fear of the Gulf States is of an American/Israeli strike against Iran which would be catastrophic for them, as they would find themselves in the line of fire.

Everything Bush has touched has turned to dross. But he still has another half year in the White House, and who can say of what further destructive follies he might yet be capable.

Patrick Seale is a leading British writer on the Middle East, and the author of The Struggle for Syria; also, Asad of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East; and Abu Nidal: A Gun for Hire.

There is no civil war in Lebanon; there is a war against the resistanceby Nadia Hasan

What is going on today in Lebanon is just an extension of the situation in the entire region. The US and its western allies are trying to show everyone that religion is the main factor of this dispute and they are trying to cover the political motivations and especially economic interests involved in the whole process. There are two main positions in Lebanon today, on one hand a colonialist project supported by the US and its principle ally in the region, Israel, whose spokesman is the Lebanese Government itself, and on the other, a project of sovereignty conducted by the resistance movement. In fact, it is a war between those who are simply patriotic and external agents. That is why both camps are composed of several currents simultaneously; religious, sectarian, ideological, and so forth. It is important to note that Michiel Aoun, the nationalist QS (Qornet Shehwan) and the Communist parties are in line with Hezbollah?

The pro-imperialist western Lebanese government aims at pitting the National Army against the people and the resistance. Their goal is to hide behind the army because they lack popular support. It should be noted that the army establishment is still led by nationalists.

Prior to the Israeli invasion against Lebanon in 2006, there was a series of internal and external pressure to dismantle the legitimate movement of resistance in Lebanon, which is Hezbollah. This pressure increased after this group defeated the Israeli army and restored the hopes of other resistance movements in various parts of the Arab Homeland. This victory demonstrated without a doubt that resistance against globalism on the one hand, and guerrilla war on the other is still possible.

A few days ago, after the longest session in the history of the Lebanese parliament, the pro-western coalition voted to make the communication net of Hezbollah illegal, a communication system that was very effective against the Israeli army during the war last summer. This “Declaration of War” against the resistance is just another example of how the local puppets of the US and Israel are fighting against their own people, because through this action, the government is actually dismantling the main tool the resistance has to fight against the colonialist project in the region.

This is not a minor issue, it is the first time since the Taif Accords in 1989 that put an end to the civil war in the country and consecrated the legitimacy of the armed resistance of Hezbollah against Israel, that the government condemns a communication network which is part of the security apparatus of the movement and considers it an “illegal threat against the State”.

What the Lebanese Government is doing today is nothing less than the dirty work of Israel, just a few days after the US government declared once again that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization, keeping it on the “Blacklist”.

The aim here can only be to give to the US the control of the Airport and all the communication systems within the country, with the result of undermining the legitimate resistance of the people against their main target, Israel. They do this by provoking internal fights, which are easy to add to the confusion of religious disputes, just in the way they already have been doing in Iraq and in Palestine. The main reason behind the firing of the leader of the airport is that he declared that al-Hariri secretly met Bandar, the Saudi Amir, in the Airport several days before the government decided to fire him. Bandar was the only Arab who was told by Bush when the invasion against Iraq would start.

The biggest threat for a colonialist project in the region, including both the Arab ruler regimes and the western supporters, are the people and their power of resistance. To undermine this power and to create a constant climate of internal tension is the goal of anyone who is against a unified Arab nationalistic movement in the Arab Homeland.

How we can explain other than in this way the several accusations of Iranian intromission in Lebanon, even asking for the expulsion of its Ambassador and to paralyze all the flights to and from Iran due the support of the Iranian government to Hezbollah, but not a single word has been uttered against the external intromission of the US in Iraq, not a word against the allowance of a third of Qatari land surrendered in order to house a US base, not a word against external forces, armed to the teeth under the false pretext of “safeguarding democracy”, ignoring the respect of Lebanese territoriality and considering as “terrorists” a large number of its population?

France, the “motherland” keeps an important military presence in the area, focused mainly upon imposing the achievement of the recuperation of the colonialist project and once again doing the dirty work of an entity that has been oppressing an entire people for more than 60 years.

A ministerial meeting will take place in Cairo, convened by Egypt and Saudi Arabia, for what reason other than to condemn once again the right of people to resist the oppressor, as Hezbollah is doing successfully in Lebanon? Certainly these ministers will discuss ways to stop the “negative” influence that the supporters of resistance have inside the country.

Finally, it should be noted that Palestine is in the core of the conflict in Lebanon. The termination of resistance has never been devoted to ‘building’ and safeguarding Lebanon, but to protecting Israel and making it a ‘normal’ state in the Arab Homeland. But the first decision of the agents, if they succeed, will be the re-settlement of Palestinian refugees from Lebanon to…anywhere else but Palestine.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

"Liberal Hollywood" is a favorite whipping-boy of right-wingers who suppose the town and its signature industry are ever-at-work undermining the U.S. military. In reality, the military has been deeply involved with the film industry since the Silent Era. Today, however, the ad hoc arrangements of the past have been replaced by a full-scale one-stop shop, occupying a floor of a Los Angeles office building. There, the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, and the Department of Defense itself have established entertainment liaison offices to help ensure that Hollywood makes movies the military way.

What they have to trade, especially when it comes to blockbuster films, is access to high-tech, tax-payer funded, otherwise unavailable gear. What they get in return is usually the right to alter or shape scripts to suit their needs. If you want to see the fruits of this relationship in action, all you need to do is head down to your local multiplex. Chances are that Iron Man -- the latest military-entertainment masterpiece -- is playing on a couple of screens.

For the past three weeks, Iron Man --a film produced by its comic-book parent Marvel and distributed by Paramount Pictures -- has cleaned up at the box office, taking in a staggering $222.5 million in the U.S. and $428.5 million worldwide. The movie, which opened with "the tenth biggest weekend box office performance of all time" and the second biggest for a non-sequel, has the added distinction of being the "best-reviewed movie of 2008 so far." For instance, in the New York Times, movie reviewer A.O. Scott called Iron Man "an unusually good superhero picture," while Roger Ebert wrote: "The world needs another comic book movie like it needs another Bush administration… [but] if we must have one more… ‘Iron Man' is a swell one to have." There has even been nascent Oscar buzz.

Robert Downey Jr. has been nearly universally praised for a winning performance as playboy-billionaire-merchant-of-death-genius-inventor Tony Stark, head of Stark Industries, a fictional version of Lockheed or Boeing. In the film, Stark travels to Afghanistan to showcase a new weapon of massive destruction to American military commanders occupying that country. On a Humvee journey through the Afghan backlands, his military convoy is caught up in a deadly ambush by al-Qaeda stand-ins, who capture him and promptly subject him to what Vice President Dick Cheney once dubbed "a dunk in the water," but used to be known as "the Water Torture." The object is to force him to build his Jericho weapons system, one of his "masterpieces of death," in their Tora Bora-like mountain cave complex.

As practically everyone in the world already knows, Stark instead builds a prototype metal super-suit and busts out of his cave of confinement, slaughtering his terrorist captors as he goes. Back in the U.S., a born-again Stark announces that his company needs to get out of the weapons game, claiming he has "more to offer the world than making things blow up." Yet, what he proceeds to build is, of course, a souped-up model of the suit he designed in the Afghan cave. Back inside it, as Iron Man, he then uses it to "blow up" bad guys in Afghanistan, taking on the role of a kind of (super-)human-rights vigilante. He even tangles with U.S. forces in the skies over that occupied land, but when the Air Force's sleek, ultra high-tech, F-22A Raptors try to shoot him down, he refrains from using his awesome powers of invention to blow them away. This isn't the only free pass doled out to the U.S. military in the film.

Just as America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to bring various Vietnam analogies to mind, Iron Man has its own Vietnam pedigree. Before Tony Stark landed in Afghanistan in 2008, he first lumbered forth in Vietnam in the 1960s. That was, of course, when he was still just the clunky hero of the comic book series on which the film is based. Marvel's metal man then battled that era's American enemies of choice: not al-Qaedan-style terrorists, but communists in Southeast Asia.

Versions of the stereotypical evil Asians of Iron Man's comic book world would appear almost unaltered on the big screen in 1978 in another movie punctuated by gunfire and explosions that also garnered great reviews. The Deer Hunter, an epic of loss and horror in Vietnam, eventually took home four Academy Awards, including Best Picture honors. Then, and since, however, the movie has been excoriated by antiwar critics for the way it turned history on its head in its use of reversed iconic images that seemingly placed all guilt for death and destruction in Vietnam on America's enemies.

Most famously, it appropriated a then-unforgettable Pulitzer prize-winning photo of Lt. Colonel Nguyen Ngoc Loan, South Vietnam's national police chief, executing an unarmed, bound prisoner during the Tet Offensive with a point blank pistol shot to the head. In the film, however, it was the evil enemy which made American prisoners do the same to themselves as they were forced to play Russian Roulette for the amusement of their sadistic Vietnamese captors (something that had no basis in reality).

The film Iron Man is replete with such reversals, starting with the obvious fact that, in Afghanistan, it is Americans who have imprisoned captured members of al-Qaeda and the Taliban (as well as untold innocents) in exceedingly grim conditions, not vice-versa. It is they who, like Tony Stark, have been subjected to the Bush administration's signature "harsh interrogation technique." While a few reviewers have offhandedly alluded to the eeriness of this screen choice, Iron Man has suffered no serious criticism for taking the imprisonment practices, and most infamous torture, of the Bush years and superimposing it onto America's favorite evil-doers. Nor have critics generally thought to point out that, while, in the film, the nefarious Obadiah Stane, Stark's right hand man, is a double-dealing arms dealer who is selling high-tech weapons systems to the terrorists in Afghanistan (and trying to kill Stark as well), two decades ago the U.S. government played just that role. For years, it sent advanced weapons systems -- including Stinger missiles, one of the most high-tech weapons of that moment -- to jihadis in Afghanistan so they could make war on one infidel superpower (the Soviet Union), before setting their sights on another (the United States). And while this took place way back in the 1980s, it shouldn't be too hard for film critics to recall – since it was lionized in last year's celebrated Tom Hanks film Charlie Wilson's War.

In the cinematic Marvel Universe, however, the U.S. military, which runs the notorious prison at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan where so many have been imprisoned, abused, and, in some cases, have even died, receives a veritable get out of jail free card. And you don't need to look very closely to understand why -- or why the sleek U.S. aircraft in the film get a similar free pass from Iron Man, even when they attack him, or why terrorists and arms dealers take the fall for what the U.S. has done in the real world.

If they didn't, you can be sure that Iron Man wouldn't be involved in a blue-skies ballet with F-22A Raptors in the movie's signature scene and that the filmmakers would never have been able to shoot at Edwards Air Force base -- a prospect which could have all but grounded Iron Man, since, as director Jon Favreau put it, Edwards was "the best back lot you could ever have." Favreau, in fact, minced no words in his ardent praise for the way working with the Air Force gave him access to the "best stuff" and how filming on the base brought "a certain prestige to the film." Perhaps in exchange for the U.S. Air Force's collaboration, there was an additional small return favor: Iron Man's confidant, sidekick, and military liaison, Lt. Col. James "Rhodey" Rhodes -- another hero of the film -- is now an Air Force man, not the Marine he was in the comic.

With the box office numbers still pouring in and the announcement of sequels to come, the arrangement has obviously worked out well for Favreau, Marvel, Paramount -- and the U.S. Air Force. Before the movie was released, Master Sergeant Larry Belen, the superintendent of technical support for the Air Force Test Pilot School and one of many airmen who auditioned for a spot in the movie, outlined his motivation to aid the film: "I want people to walk away from this movie with a really good impression of the Air Force, like they got about the Navy seeing Top Gun."

Air Force captain Christian Hodge, the Defense Department's project officer for Iron Man, may have put it best, however, when he predicted that, once the film appeared, the "Air Force is going to come off looking like rock stars." Maybe the Air Force hasn't hit the Top Gun-style jackpot with Iron Man, but there can be no question that, in an American world in which war-fighting doesn't exactly have the glitz of yesteryear, Iron Man is certainly a military triumph. As Chuck Vinch noted in a review published in the Air Force Times, "The script… will surely have the flyboy brass back at the Pentagon trading high fives -- especially the scene in which Iron Man dogfights in the high clouds with two F-22 Raptors."

Coming on the heels of last year's military-aided mega-spectacular Transformers, the Pentagon is managing to keep a steady stream of pro-military blockbusters in front of young eyes during two dismally unsuccessful foreign occupations that grind on without end. In his Iron Man review, Roger Ebert called the pre-transformation Tony Stark, "the embodiment of the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned against in 1961 -- a financial superhero for whom war is good business, and whose business interests guarantee there will always be a market for war."

Here's the irony that Ebert missed: What the film Iron Man actually catches is the spirit of the successor "complex," which has leapt not only into the cinematic world of superheroes, but also into the civilian sphere of our world in a huge way. Today, almost everywhere you look, whether at the latest blockbuster on the big screen or what's on much smaller screens in your own home -- likely made by a defense contractor like Sony, Samsung, Panasonic or Toshiba -- you'll find the Pentagon or its corporate partners. In fact, from the companies that make your computer to those that produce your favorite soft drink, many of the products in your home are made by Defense Department contractors -- and, if you look carefully, you don't even need the glowing eyes of an advanced "cybernetic helmet," like Iron Man's, to see them.

Nick Turse is the associate editor and research director of Tomdispatch.com. He has written for the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, Adbusters, the Nation, and regularly for Tomdispatch.com. His first book, The Complex, an exploration of the new military-corporate complex in America, was recently published in the American Empire Project series by Metropolitan Books.

Accompanied by friends and family, Senator Edward Kennedy slowly walked out of a Massachusetts hospital Wednesday, a day after being diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor that experts say is almost certainly fatal.

A crowd of well-wishers applauded the 76-year-old Democrat as emerged from the doors of Massachusetts General in Boston. He smiled, waved back and gave a thumbs-up. His dogs greeted him at the hospital door.

His doctors say Kennedy "has recovered remarkably quickly" from a biopsy conducted after he suffered a seizure last weekend.

They say he will await further test results and treatment options while convalescing at home on Cape Cod over the U.S. Memorial Day weekend.

The last son of one of America's most famous political families was diagnosed with a malignant glioma in his left parietal lobe after suffering a seizure in his home on Saturday.

Malignant gliomas are diagnosed in about 9,000 Americans a year.

In general, half of all patients die within a year.

Kennedy's wife, Vicki, told friends the grim diagnosis was "a real curveball" that left his family stunned even as he joked and laughed with them, but she expressed pride in how her husband was handling the news.

"Teddy is leading us all, as usual, with his calm approach to getting the best information possible," she wrote in an e-mail Tuesday to friends.

"He's also making me crazy (and making me laugh) by pushing to race in the Figawi this weekend," she rote, referring to the annual sailing race from Cape Cod to Nantucket.

The diagnosis cast a pall over Capitol Hill, where the Massachusetts Democrat has served since 1962, with members from both sides of the aisle reacting emotionally to the news.

Bell and Rogers are changing how the Internet works by dictating how Web users access content. Bell is limiting Sympatico subscribers from downloading content. Subscribers of Internet hosting companies that buy wholesale services from Bell have already been feeling the pinch since mid-March. This policy is more accurately referred to as ‘throttling’, and it fundamentally changes how the Internet works. Meanwhile, Rogers, in addition to its own traffic shaping activities, has announced it will charge subscribers more for Internet activities that use more bandwidth. Instead of users deciding how we use the Internet, ISPs are now trying "shape" our traffic.

The companies argue they are trying to limit activities that use up a lot of bandwidth in order to maintain speed for all users. But there is a dangerous reality hidden beneath the companies' apparent concern for subscribers.

Using the same "traffic shaping" principle, the companies can steer subscribers to their own content, or content produced by affiliated companies, and away from that offered by competitors - including the public broadcaster. For example, some Internet users who recently tried to download CBC's The Next Greatest Prime Minister on Bittorrent were told it would take hours to do so.

For more than a decade, the Internet was a neutral resource for people around the world to share information with each other.

Do we really want Bell and Rogers to be able to tell us what we can and cannot view and do on the Internet?

Federal Ethics Commissioner Files Motion to Try to Stop Court Review of Her Ruling That Prime Minister and His Cabinet Are Not in a Conflict of Interest Over Mulroney-Schreiber Situation, But Rules Liberal MP is in a Conflict of Interest

OTTAWA - Today, Democracy Watch released its response to federal Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson's motion which she filed in the Federal Court of Appeal in April.. The motion is an attempt to stop a review by the Court of her ruling issued on January 7, 2008 which concluded that, even when the Prime Minister's and his Cabinet ministers' own actions and the actions of their close associate Brian Mulroney are in question, they are not covered by the Conflict of Interest Act and it is fine for them: to choose whether an inquiry into the Mulroney-Schreiber situation will take place; to set the scope of the inquiry; to choose the inquiry commissioner(s) who will judge them and Mr. Mulroney, and; to control the legal proceedings against Karlheinz Schreiber even though he made allegations about them.

Last week, Ethics Commissioner Dawson ruled that Liberal MP Robert Thibault is in a conflict of interest over the Mulroney-Schreiber situation because Mr. Mulroney had filed a lawsuit against him demanding Mr. Thibault pay more than $2 million for making libellous comments on TV about Mr. Mulroney. This is a legally correct ruling based on the rules in the Conflict of Interest Code for Members of the House of Commons (which came into force in October 2004) that say you can't take part in discussions or decisions on matters that affect your private financial interests. The ruling is a welcome change from the past ridiculous rulings of former Ethics Counsellor Howard Wilson and former Ethics Commissioner Bernard Shapiro, who almost always did everything they could to ignore ethics rules and let people off the hook even when they had clearly violated ethics rules.

Commissioner Dawson's ruling on Liberal MP Thibault highlights just how legally incorrect her ruling on Prime Minister Harper and his Cabinet ministers is. Extraordinarily, Commissioner Dawson's motion claims that she did not even make a ruling concerning the Prime Minister and his Cabinet ministers, even though she sent the ruling in writing to Democracy Watch in response to the complaint it filed with her on November 26, 2007, and the ruling sets out 12 decisions that lead to Commissioner Dawson's overall conclusion that it was not within her jurisdiction to even investigate the Prime Minister and his Cabinet ministers, let alone find them in a conflict of interest with regard to the Mulroney Schreiber situation.

"It is unethical for the federal Ethics Commissioner to uphold or ignore ethics rules depending on whom the Commissioner's ruling affects, and very unfortunately this is what seems to have happened with the Commissioner's rulings that Liberal MP Thibault is in a conflict of interest concerning the Mulroney-Schreiber situation but Prime Minister Harper and his Cabinet ministers are not," said Duff Conacher, Coordinator of Democracy Watch. "Democracy Watch hopes the Federal Court of Appeal will reject the Ethics Commissioner's ruling and make it clear that federal politicians and government officials cannot discuss or make decisions about matters in which they, their relatives or friends have an interest."

Even Prime Minister Stephen Harper has acknowledged, and stated publicly, that he and all members of his government are in a conflict of interest concerning the Brian Mulroney-Karlheinz Schreiber situation, given that Mr. Mulroney acted until very recently as an adviser to the Prime Minister, Mr. Schreiber sent documents to the Prime Minister and named him in a court affidavit, and the government was involved in legal proceedings to extradite Mr. Schreiber to Germany. However, despite recognizing their own conflict of interest, Mr. Harper and his Cabinet continue to take part in and make decisions about the situation.

Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson's ruling ignored clear measures in the Conflict of Interest Act, well-established legal standards, and the public interest, in reaching the following legally incorrect conclusions, thereby letting Prime Minister Harper and his Cabinet ministers and Cabinet staff off the hook:

TO SEE the list of decisions, and links to other key documents, go to:http://www.dwatch.ca/camp/RelsMay2108.html

It should be noted that Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson was appointed Associate Deputy Minister of Justice by then-Prime Minister Mulroney in 1988, and was selected by Prime Minister Harper and his Cabinet to be the Ethics Commissioner in spring 2007.

Democracy Watch is being represented on a pro-bono basis in the case by Yavar Hameed of the Ottawa law firm Hameed Farrokhzad St-Pierre. The Federal Court of Appeal case file number is A-174-08. The Ethics Commissioner's motion is expected to be ruled upon by the end of May.

Since 1993, cleaning up and making governments and corporations more responsible and accountable to you, and making Canada the world's leading democracy -- please donate now at: http://www.dwatch.ca/camp/support.html

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

President George W. Bush was rightly condemned last week when he implied that Democrats want to "negotiate with terrorists" because they are driven by "the false comfort of appeasement," while Republicans are committed to fighting terrorism. But in his speech before Israel's Knesset, Bush made another dangerous statement that got far less attention: He lumped together Al Qaeda with the Islamist groups Hamas and Hezbollah.

It is yet another example of the Bush Administration's flawed understanding of basic forces in the Middle East: conflating disparate groups with opposing ideologies to suggest that they have a single-minded focus in attacking the United States. Bush has done this before, most notably in his State of the Union speech in January 2007, when he presented a misleading description of "the enemy" that the United States faces abroad. "The Shiite and Sunni extremists are different faces of the same totalitarian threat. But whatever slogans they chant, when they slaughter the innocent, they have the same wicked purposes," Bush said. "They want to kill Americans, kill democracy in the Middle East and gain the weapons to kill on an even more horrific scale."

Led by Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda is the terrorist group responsible for the September 11 attacks. It has no geographical base, no realistic political platform and its main objective is to kill civilians -- both in the Muslim world and the West. But Hamas and Hezbollah are traditional Islamist and nationalist movements based in specific countries. Each group has a military wing that committed acts of terrorism during its history. They also have an important social base, provide services to their communities and are active in the political process.

This might seem like another example of Bush's ignorance. But it is dangerous because the Administration could be laying the groundwork for attacks against Hamas or Hezbollah -- more likely by Israel than directly by the United States -- in the same vein as the false intelligence that led to the invasion of Iraq. Bush's repeated portrayal of Hezbollah and Hamas as terrorist groups that want to kill Americans, in the same way that Al Qaeda does, conflates Sunni and Shiite extremism -- an approach that obscures and underestimates the resilience of both.

Hezbollah ("Party of God") is a Shiite movement, while Hamas and Al Qaeda are Sunni. In lumping together Shiite and Sunni militants, the Administration fails to grasp that these groups have disparate ideologies and, in many cases, hate one another. Al Qaeda and other extremist Sunni groups label the Shiites as heretics who should be killed. It is stunning that even after five years of occupying Iraq, the Bush Administration still does not understand basic facts about militant Islam.

In his May 15 speech before Israel's Knesset, Bush portrayed the battle between militant Islam and the West in his usual messianic terms, as a struggle between pure good and ultimate evil. "They accept no God before themselves. And they reserve a special hatred for the most ardent defenders of liberty, including Americans and Israelis," he said. "And that is why the founding charter of Hamas calls for the 'elimination' of Israel. And that is why the followers of Hezbollah chant 'Death to Israel, Death to America!' That is why Osama bin Laden teaches that 'the killing of Jews and Americans is one of the biggest duties.' "

In his 2007 State of the Union speech, Bush described Hezbollah as "second only to Al Qaeda in the American lives it has taken." He was referring to the 1983 suicide bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut. That bombing, which has been widely blamed on Hezbollah, killed 241 troops and led to the US withdrawal from Lebanon.

Most Americans associate Hezbollah with the Marine barracks bombing, which followed US intervention in the Lebanese civil war. During the US deployment, American warships bombed Shiite areas controlled by Hezbollah and its allies. Bush has repeatedly tried to portray the Hezbollah of today as the same group it was in the 1980s -- intent on killing Americans and kidnapping Westerners. But since the late 1980s, the group has mainly focused on fighting Israel, waging an eighteen-year guerrilla war that forced Israel to end its occupation of southern Lebanon in May 2000. (Washington brands Hezbollah a terrorist organization, while the European Union does not.)

These days, Hezbollah is not so much focused on battling America as on exerting control over the Lebanese state in order to perpetuate its ability to fight Israel. The group has evolved into a political movement with a formidable militia. It draws its strength from the Shiite community, which is the largest sect in Lebanon, making up about 40 percent of a total population of 4 million. Hezbollah runs a virtual mini-state, controlling the crowded Shiite suburbs of Beirut and much of southern Lebanon. It holds twelve seats in the Lebanese parliament; controls two government ministries; operates a television station; and runs schools, hospitals and charities.

Since it was founded in the early 1980s, Hezbollah has received financial, military and political support from Iran. Iran's militant clerics, including the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, once hoped that the group would help export their Islamic revolution to the Arab world, but Hezbollah later abandoned the cause of creating an Islamic state in multi-confessional Lebanon.

This is not to say that Hezbollah is a democratic or liberal movement. After the Israeli withdrawal, many Lebanese wanted it to disarm and become a strictly political party. Hezbollah's leaders refused, and they have since gone to great lengths to protect their weapons. The group has also shown little willingness to become accountable to the non-Shiite communities in Lebanon.

Over the past eighteen months, Hezbollah has led a mostly nonviolent campaign to topple the US-backed Lebanese government. But earlier this month, Hezbollah ignited the worst internal fighting since the end of Lebanon's fifteen-year civil war. On May 6, Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and his cabinet issued an order outlawing Hezbollah's private communications network, and another order dismissing the security chief at the Beirut airport. Hezbollah accused the United States and Israel of instigating the two decisions.

In response, Hezbollah dispatched hundreds of heavily armed fighters into the largely Sunni areas of West Beirut. They quickly routed Sunni militiamen, seized their political offices and shut down media outlets owned by the Sunni leader Saad Hariri. On May 15, Siniora's government rescinded its orders, Hezbollah pulled its fighters off the streets and leaders for the two factions headed to Qatar to negotiate under the Arab League's auspices.

Like his focus on Hezbollah, Bush has also presented a flawed description of Hamas and its intentions. The group has never targeted Americans, nor has it threatened to do so. Whether Bush likes it or not, Hamas represents a significant part of the Palestinian population. It is a nationalist political and social force -- and no viable settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is possible without its involvement.

In his Knesset speech, Bush took a veiled swipe at Democratic presidential front-runner Barack Obama, who has expressed willingness to negotiate with Syria, Iran and other regimes branded as "rogue states" by the Bush Administration. "Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," Bush said, without mentioning Obama by name. "We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

"Appeasement" quickly became the latest catchphrase in media coverage of the presidential race. The debate has focused on whether Obama will "appease" Hamas (or Iran) if he is elected. But few are asking the more important question: why shouldn't the United States engage Hamas or Hezbollah? That does not mean America must accept their politics or "give in" to their demands; rather, Washington must recognize that they have to be negotiated with because they represent significant segments of their societies.

After Hamas won 74 of the 132 seats in the Palestinian legislature in January 2006, the United States and Israel decided to isolate the group and pushed Europe to follow along. Hamas is designated a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union. Israel and the West demand that Hamas renounce violence, recognize the Jewish state and promise to abide by past peace agreements such as the 1993 Oslo Accords.

Last June an internal conflict between Hamas and the Fatah movement led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas turned into open warfare. After Hamas took control of Gaza by force, Abbas deposed the Hamas-led government. The two factions now run separate administrations in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel and the United States resumed negotiations with Abbas, while Israel imposed a tight economic blockade on Gaza and its 1.4 million residents. Israel claims the siege is intended to turn Palestinians against Hamas. Of course, that has not worked, and Palestinians instead directed their anger at Israel and Abbas.

Those who advocate excluding Hamas do not offer any solutions for ending the current stalemate. Israel refuses to stop its air raids and attacks on Gaza, or to lift the siege. In turn, Hamas refuses to end its rocket strikes on civilians in southern Israel or attacks on Israeli soldiers stationed at the border.

In his speech to the Knesset -- intended to mark the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of Israel -- Bush laid out a vague vision for a democratic Middle East in another sixty years. "From Cairo to Riyadh to Baghdad and Beirut, people will live in free and independent societies," he said. "Al Qaeda and Hezbollah and Hamas will be defeated, as Muslims across the region recognize the emptiness of the terrorists' vision and the injustice of their cause."

At the heart of Bush's fantasy is that Muslims would reject Islamist groups if they could choose their own political leaders in free and fair elections. But that argument was undercut in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, two of the most liberal and diverse societies in the region. Both Hezbollah and Hamas have gained political power and strength in recent years, partly through the ballot box. People who live under foreign or military occupation -- or who feel excluded from the dominant political structure, as the Shiites still do in Lebanon -- often choose militant groups to represent them and resist on their behalf. That is the appeal of Hamas and Hezbollah today. Hamas has also succeeded in positioning itself as an alternative to the corrupt, inefficient and largely discredited Fatah leadership.

If the US goal is to disarm and pacify Hezbollah and Hamas, Washington cannot approach them in the same way it deals with Al Qaeda. That is the mistake the United States made with the insurgency in Iraq: failing to recognize early on that US troops were not facing lone terrorists but rather a movement that had support from a significant portion of the Iraqi population. The next US administration must stop pretending that Hezbollah and Hamas are the same as Al Qaeda, and acknowledge that these are political and military movements deeply embedded in their societies. That would be the first step toward genuine dialogue -- and a pragmatic foreign policy.

Mohamad Bazzi, who was Newsday's Middle East bureau chief for four years, is currently the Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Back in the mid-1990s, in my book, The End of Victory Culture, I wrote the following about the adventure films of my childhood (and those of earlier decades):

"For the nonwhite, annihilation was built not just into the on-screen Hollywood spectacle but into its casting structures. Available to the Other were only four roles: the invisible, the evil, the dependent, and the expendable…. When the inhabitants of these borderlands emerged from their oases, ravines, huts, or tepees, they found that there was but one role in which a nonwhite (usually played by a white actor) was likely to come out on top, and that was the villain with his fanatical speeches and propensity for odd tortures. Only as a repository for evil could the nonwhite momentarily triumph. Whether an Indian chief, a Mexican bandit leader, or an Oriental despot, his pre-World War II essence was the same. Set against his shiny pate or silken voice, his hard eyes or false laugh, no white could look anything but good."

Having spent a recent evening in my local multiplex watching the latest superhero blockbuster, Iron Man, all I can say is: such traditions obviously die hard (even in the age of Barack Obama). The Afghans and assorted terrorists of the film, when not falling into that "invisible" category -- as backdrops for the heroics or evil acts of the real actors -- are out of central casting from a playbook of the 1930s filled with images of Fu Manchu or Ming the Merciless: Right down to that shiny bald pate, the silken voice, the hard eyes, and that propensity for "odd tortures."

It's lucky, then, that, in the real world, the Bush administration has made the decision to expand our no-charges, no-recourse, no-courts, no-lawyers prison network in Afghanistan to hold such monsters. Give Eric Schmitt and Tim Golden of the New York Times credit for their recent front-page scoop: "The Pentagon is moving forward with plans to build a new, 40-acre detention complex on the main American military base in Afghanistan, officials said, in a stark acknowledgment that the United States is likely to continue to hold prisoners overseas for years to come… [the new prison will be] a more modern and humane detention center that would usually accommodate about 600 detainees -- or as many as 1,100 in a surge -- and cost more than $60 million." The real money quote in the piece, however, lay buried inside the fold. The reporters quote an anonymous Pentagon official speaking of the infamous older American prison at Bagram Air Base where some of those "odd tortures" have taken place: "It's just not suitable. At some point, you have to say, 'That's it. This place was not made to keep people there indefinitely.'"

So, the new prison, then, is apparently for holding people "indefinitely." Lurking in that word, of course, is the logical thought that we'll just have to stay in Afghanistan indefinitely, too. Otherwise, who's going to do the necessary imprisoning? Perhaps it's worth noting as well that, at this moment, the Pentagon is also expanding its major prison in Iraq, Camp Bucca, already stuffed with up to 20,000 prisoners, to hold another 10,000, assumedly in case a future prisoner "surge" comes along, and assumedly once again "indefinitely." In fact, when it comes to prisons, the Pentagon and its contractors are the busiest of beavers. After all, they've been expanding Guantanamo in Cuba, too, while Bush administration officials talk idly about shutting that prison down. Even kids aren't immune. A recent report claims that the U.S. now holds at least 500 "juveniles," mainly in Iraq, but also in Afghanistan, and perhaps elsewhere as "imperative threats to security." (Guantanamo evidently now has no juveniles only because two prisoners have been held there long enough to grow into adulthood.)

These are expansive American facts on the ground in two occupied countries where, you might say (though you wouldn't know it from Iron Man), imprisonment is our middle name and "odd tortures" what we've built our rep on. Of course, at a time when the U.S. is hemorrhaging real jobs, Americans have made quite a living from building and expanding prisons and prison populations at home, too.

Once upon a time, there was an all-American superhero who fought for "truth, justice, and the American way." But that's passé today. As a nation, we're not much into justice anymore; what we're into is incarceration, punishment, and those "odd tortures." It's increasingly our métier, our truth, the American way. So maybe Iron Man, an arms dealer by day, is, as Nick Turse, author of the superb exposé of the new Pentagon, The Complex, indicates, exactly the right superhero to illuminate our American moment. Tom

"Liberal Hollywood" is a favorite whipping-boy of right-wingers who suppose the town and its signature industry are ever-at-work undermining the U.S. military. In reality, the military has been deeply involved with the film industry since the Silent Era. Today, however, the ad hoc arrangements of the past have been replaced by a full-scale one-stop shop, occupying a floor of a Los Angeles office building. There, the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, and the Department of Defense itself have established entertainment liaison offices to help ensure that Hollywood makes movies the military way.

What they have to trade, especially when it comes to blockbuster films, is access to high-tech, tax-payer funded, otherwise unavailable gear. What they get in return is usually the right to alter or shape scripts to suit their needs. If you want to see the fruits of this relationship in action, all you need to do is head down to your local multiplex. Chances are that Iron Man -- the latest military-entertainment masterpiece -- is playing on a couple of screens.

For the past three weeks, Iron Man --a film produced by its comic-book parent Marvel and distributed by Paramount Pictures -- has cleaned up at the box office, taking in a staggering $222.5 million in the U.S. and $428.5 million worldwide. The movie, which opened with "the tenth biggest weekend box office performance of all time" and the second biggest for a non-sequel, has the added distinction of being the "best-reviewed movie of 2008 so far." For instance, in the New York Times, movie reviewer A.O. Scott called Iron Man "an unusually good superhero picture," while Roger Ebert wrote: "The world needs another comic book movie like it needs another Bush administration… [but] if we must have one more… ‘Iron Man' is a swell one to have." There has even been nascent Oscar buzz.

Robert Downey Jr. has been nearly universally praised for a winning performance as playboy-billionaire-merchant-of-death-genius-inventor Tony Stark, head of Stark Industries, a fictional version of Lockheed or Boeing. In the film, Stark travels to Afghanistan to showcase a new weapon of massive destruction to American military commanders occupying that country. On a Humvee journey through the Afghan backlands, his military convoy is caught up in a deadly ambush by al-Qaeda stand-ins, who capture him and promptly subject him to what Vice President Dick Cheney once dubbed "a dunk in the water," but used to be known as "the Water Torture." The object is to force him to build his Jericho weapons system, one of his "masterpieces of death," in their Tora Bora-like mountain cave complex.

As practically everyone in the world already knows, Stark instead builds a prototype metal super-suit and busts out of his cave of confinement, slaughtering his terrorist captors as he goes. Back in the U.S., a born-again Stark announces that his company needs to get out of the weapons game, claiming he has "more to offer the world than making things blow up." Yet, what he proceeds to build is, of course, a souped-up model of the suit he designed in the Afghan cave. Back inside it, as Iron Man, he then uses it to "blow up" bad guys in Afghanistan, taking on the role of a kind of (super-)human-rights vigilante. He even tangles with U.S. forces in the skies over that occupied land, but when the Air Force's sleek, ultra high-tech, F-22A Raptors try to shoot him down, he refrains from using his awesome powers of invention to blow them away. This isn't the only free pass doled out to the U.S. military in the film.

Just as America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to bring various Vietnam analogies to mind, Iron Man has its own Vietnam pedigree. Before Tony Stark landed in Afghanistan in 2008, he first lumbered forth in Vietnam in the 1960s. That was, of course, when he was still just the clunky hero of the comic book series on which the film is based. Marvel's metal man then battled that era's American enemies of choice: not al-Qaedan-style terrorists, but communists in Southeast Asia.

Versions of the stereotypical evil Asians of Iron Man's comic book world would appear almost unaltered on the big screen in 1978 in another movie punctuated by gunfire and explosions that also garnered great reviews. The Deer Hunter, an epic of loss and horror in Vietnam, eventually took home four Academy Awards, including Best Picture honors. Then, and since, however, the movie has been excoriated by antiwar critics for the way it turned history on its head in its use of reversed iconic images that seemingly placed all guilt for death and destruction in Vietnam on America's enemies.

Most famously, it appropriated a then-unforgettable Pulitzer prize-winning photo of Lt. Colonel Nguyen Ngoc Loan, South Vietnam's national police chief, executing an unarmed, bound prisoner during the Tet Offensive with a point blank pistol shot to the head. In the film, however, it was the evil enemy which made American prisoners do the same to themselves as they were forced to play Russian Roulette for the amusement of their sadistic Vietnamese captors (something that had no basis in reality).

The film Iron Man is replete with such reversals, starting with the obvious fact that, in Afghanistan, it is Americans who have imprisoned captured members of al-Qaeda and the Taliban (as well as untold innocents) in exceedingly grim conditions, not vice-versa. It is they who, like Tony Stark, have been subjected to the Bush administration's signature "harsh interrogation technique." While a few reviewers have offhandedly alluded to the eeriness of this screen choice, Iron Man has suffered no serious criticism for taking the imprisonment practices, and most infamous torture, of the Bush years and superimposing it onto America's favorite evil-doers. Nor have critics generally thought to point out that, while, in the film, the nefarious Obadiah Stane, Stark's right hand man, is a double-dealing arms dealer who is selling high-tech weapons systems to the terrorists in Afghanistan (and trying to kill Stark as well), two decades ago the U.S. government played just that role. For years, it sent advanced weapons systems -- including Stinger missiles, one of the most high-tech weapons of that moment -- to jihadis in Afghanistan so they could make war on one infidel superpower (the Soviet Union), before setting their sights on another (the United States). And while this took place way back in the 1980s, it shouldn't be too hard for film critics to recall – since it was lionized in last year's celebrated Tom Hanks' film Charlie Wilson's War.

In the cinematic Marvel Universe, however, the U.S. military, which runs the notorious prison at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan, where so many have been imprisoned, abused, and, in some cases, have even died, receives a veritable get out of jail free card. And you don't need to look very closely to understand why -- or why the sleek U.S. aircraft in the film get a similar free pass from Iron Man, even when they attack him, or why terrorists and arms dealers take the fall for what the U.S. has done in the real world.

If they didn't, you can be sure that Iron Man wouldn't be involved in a blue-skies ballet with F-22A Raptors in the movie's signature scene and that the filmmakers would never have been able to shoot at Edwards Air Force base -- a prospect which could have all but grounded Iron Man, since, as director Jon Favreau put it, Edwards was "the best back lot you could ever have." Favreau, in fact, minced no words in his ardent praise for the way working with the Air Force gave him access to the "best stuff" and how filming on the base brought "a certain prestige to the film." Perhaps in exchange for the U.S. Air Force's collaboration, there was an additional small return favor: Iron Man's confidant, sidekick, and military liaison, Lt. Col. James "Rhodey" Rhodes -- another hero of the film -- is now an Air Force man, not the Marine he was in the comic.

With the box office numbers still pouring in and the announcement of sequels to come, the arrangement has obviously worked out well for Favreau, Marvel, Paramount -- and the U.S. Air Force. Before the movie was released, Master Sergeant Larry Belen, the superintendent of technical support for the Air Force Test Pilot School and one of many airmen who auditioned for a spot in the movie, outlined his motivation to aid the film: "I want people to walk away from this movie with a really good impression of the Air Force, like they got about the Navy seeing Top Gun."

Air Force captain Christian Hodge, the Defense Department's project officer for Iron Man, may have put it best, however, when he predicted that, once the film appeared, the "Air Force is going to come off looking like rock stars." Maybe the Air Force hasn't hit the Top Gun-style jackpot with Iron Man, but there can be no question that, in an American world in which war-fighting doesn't exactly have the glitz of yesteryear, Iron Man is certainly a military triumph. As Chuck Vinch noted in a review published in the Air Force Times, "The script… will surely have the flyboy brass back at the Pentagon trading high fives -- especially the scene in which Iron Man dogfights in the high clouds with two F-22 Raptors."

Coming on the heels of last year's military-aided mega-spectacular Transformers, the Pentagon is managing to keep a steady stream of pro-military blockbusters in front of young eyes during two dismally unsuccessful foreign occupations that grind on without end. In his Iron Man review, Roger Ebert called the pre-transformation Tony Stark, "the embodiment of the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned against in 1961 -- a financial superhero for whom war is good business, and whose business interests guarantee there will always be a market for war."

Here's the irony that Ebert missed: What the film Iron Man actually catches is the spirit of the successor "complex," which has leapt not only into the cinematic world of superheroes, but also into the civilian sphere of our world in a huge way. Today, almost everywhere you look, whether at the latest blockbuster on the big screen or what's on much smaller screens in your own home -- likely made by a defense contractor like Sony, Samsung, Panasonic or Toshiba -- you'll find the Pentagon or its corporate partners. In fact, from the companies that make your computer to those that produce your favorite soft drink, many of the products in your home are made by Defense Department contractors -- and, if you look carefully, you don't even need the glowing eyes of an advanced "cybernetic helmet," like Iron Man's, to see them.

Nick Turse is the associate editor and research director of Tomdispatch.com. He has written for the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, Adbusters, the Nation, and regularly for Tomdispatch.com. His first book, The Complex, an exploration of the new military-corporate complex in America was recently published in the American Empire Project series by Metropolitan Books.